Opossums Could Hold the Key to Saving Snakebite Victims

By:Jenna Calthorpe

“Scientists pinpoint a compound in the marsupial's blood that neutralizes venom—could it help in the quest to create a universal anti venom?”

My current event is a weird but true article proving and showing that opossums blood could be the key to saving venomous snake bites. I thought that this article was very interesting just from the title. Thousands of people suffer from snake bites every year, and this animal’s blood could be the cure to saving more than thousands of people per year. Scientists tested with a mouse that had been bitten by a western diamond head snake and used the opossums blood in the mouse’s veins and it showed no signs of sickness.”It was like a miracle!”Says scientist Komives.

I chose this article because I was interested almost immediately. I decided I liked it because if opossums blood can heal venomous snake bites, that could mean saving hundreds of lives. I’ve read the whole article over and over again and everytime I read it, it changed a little bit for me. But whether or not it changed, I still agreed with everything that the author said. The reason that this interested me and grabbed my attention is because on the article picture, there is an opossum and a snake, and I was curious to see what the article was about.

One question that I had before reading the article, was if the opossums get hurt in anyway to be able to heal the wound, they don’t hurt but in order to help the bite heal, they have to drain the opossums blood. That is why I chose the article.